Peter McGuire still contracting at 87

That is the logic of 87-year-old Peter McGuire, who says loyalty and encouragement from some of SA’s biggest farming families has kept him in business for nearly 70 years.

With brother Tom, Peter began contract hay work in the Mid North region in 1950.

Their parents were managers at a North Booborowie property so the brothers wanted to start their own business.

“Hay contracting was relatively new in the 1950s, post-war,” he said.

“We used to cut, rake and bale for two shillings a bale. Today, it’s about $3 a square.

“We got a lot of work through old Mr (John Stanley) Davies at Munduney sheep station. We’d cut thousands of small bales for them.

“It also got us into grain contracting. We did their seeding and harvesting.”

Peter said the business changed dramatically in the 1960s, with the introduction of large round bales.

“It essentially spelled the end of the little squares,” he said.

They still cut squares for many of the studs in the region, but they are only in the hundreds. 

Peter said he started driving tractors in his primary school holidays and the work was a lot different back then.

“We didn’t have air-conditioned cabs, we’d work the long hours in the heat and flies,” he said.

Peter said when they started the business, they were still reaping bags – a stark contrast to today’s machines, which are operated from a screen inside the cabin.

“The hard physical work has gone, which makes it possible for someone like me to keep on the job,” he said.

“Where it will go from here, I can’t imagine, but I love it. It’s a challenge, there’s always something new to learn.”

But you won’t see Peter using auto-steer or even listening to the radio.

“There’s been too many accidents from people not concentrating,” he said.

“It’s like a motor car – I would rather keep my foot on the accelerator and keep the car under my control, than using cruise control.

“It’s the same with a header, I prefer driving it myself.”

Peter said he did once consider retiring after the wool crash in 1991.

“I used to do a lot of seeding for local studs,” he said.

“But when the wool market crashed, many had to cut back on their contract seeding to keep staff.

“I had recently turned 60, so my wife Dulcie and I decided it was maybe time to wind down the business and move into Jamestown.”

Peter said they went as far as holding a clearing sale, which many of the locals attended.

“I was approached by the Nutt family, who offered to buy my seeding plant, on the proviso I continued to use it contract seeding for them,” he said.

“The same happened with my header and hay gear, people kept saying I couldn’t sell them because they needed my contract work, so we only ended up selling the rubbish.”

The McGuires still shifted into Jamestown, but Peter said he had been travelling back and forth to the Booborowie district since.

TODAY Peter McGuire’s Mid North contracting business is mainly hay work and grain harvesting.

Peter said the grain contracting side of the business increased once sharefarming at his own property became unviable.

“We used to sharefarm our property at Willalo,” he said. “We had a bit of everything. But when chemical farming came in, the costs made it unprofitable, so we went contracting.”

Peter says he has worked for well-known families such as the Nutts, Ashbys, Lines and Sullivans for a long time, along with many others.

“I am lucky there are some very loyal families in this region,” he said.

“Every year they ask me if I’m coming back, so for as long as they want me and my health holds up, I’ll keep doing it.”

Hay cutting started in September, with Peter only finishing the grain harvest on Tuesday last week. He contracted from Booborowie to Canowie to Mount Bryan.

He said this past season was the worst he had experienced, because of frosts and the lack of rain. 

“In my lifetime, I had never seen this district miss out,” he said.

“This would be the worst I have seen this area.

“We cut more hay this year because of the frosts, but then some people didn’t even have hay to cut.

“Anything sown after the end of May didn’t seem to come to fruition.”

A strict New Holland customer, Peter said he was also one of the Vater family’s oldest clients, buying a hay baler when they took over the local agency in 1956. He has been with them ever since.